Vog's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week

from the stay-classy dept

Hello, Vog here, but I guess you probably already know me, sort of. It's been a busy news week on several fronts, and there's been no shortage of interesting articles to pick favorites from here on Techdirt. So get comfortable, pour some Kool-Aid, and check out these developments you might have missed.

Regardless of which set of political beliefs you subscribe to or which business models you value, encouraging innovation and allowing for the development of emerging technology is crucial to advancing not only business, but our culture, society, and species as well. If you have to rest on your laurels, at least sleep with one eye open towards the future. It was great to hear the results of the Insight community making some recommendations for a government innovation agenda, which is an endeavor we should all support for our common good.

Other things to not call turnarounds: Wells Fargo recently firing an employee for fraud that was unsuccessful, a half-century ago, and for 10 cents; also, a project to end malaria started by Intellectual Ventures for the purposes of PR grandstanding, theoretically legitimizing their own existence, and having a totally sick riposte for critics (at least in Myhrvold's mind).

Speaking of targeted assassinations, two drone strikes this week included a video stream of the Hugo Awards and the official stream of the Democratic National Convention (insert political joke here). The culprits in both cases were automated systems designed to protect copyright holders by checking site content for infringement; instead, they prevented access to cleared, legitimate streams. See, if only the streams had shown their papers, there wouldn't have been a problem.